CKE Press Release

October 23, 2013

Another Hardee’s Opens in Chicago Area

Home of the 100 percent Black Angus Thickburger® and Made From Scratch Biscuits™ set to open Friday in Elk Grove

ST. LOUIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Hardee’s® is continuing to expand in the Chicago area with a
new restaurant in Elk Grove Village set to open Friday. A series of
Hardee’s Chicagoland openings by franchisee Frontier Star, LLC began
this summer with new Hardee’s restaurants in Bolingbrook and Midlothian.
Other Chicago market openings are scheduled.

The new restaurant in Elk Grove will open its doors at 6 a.m. Friday at
1551 S. Busse Road, offering Hardee’s innovative premium-quality menu
selections. Each of the first 500 customers will receive a coupon book
featuring one free Hardee’s menu item a week for 52 weeks.

Prior to Friday’s public grand opening, there will be an invitation-only
media event and restaurant ribbon-cutting ceremony at 1 p.m. on
Thursday, co-hosted by the Elk Grove Chamber of Commerce. As part of
Thursday’s festivities, the burger chain’s familiar Happy Star mascot
will be on hand to welcome invited guests. Also at the ceremony, the
franchisee owners will present $500 checks to the local Veterans of
Foreign Wars Post 9284 and to the nonprofit Kenneth Young Center, which
provides mental health and senior citizen support services.

“We make it a point to give back to the community - always,” said
franchisee Jason LeVecke, chief executive officer of Frontier Star, LLC,
and the grandson of Carl’s Jr. founders Carl and Margaret Karcher. “It
was something our grandfather taught us by example: to be not only good
business people but to be good people, good citizens.”

Many area residents will be learning and benefiting from that philosophy
as the franchisees continue their big Hardee’s push into Chicagoland. In
the coming months, Frontier Star will be bringing the burger chain’s
robust menu of premium, sit-down-restaurant-quality items to Prospect
Heights, West Chicago, Warrenville and beyond.

“We are scheduled to open 35 or more Hardee’s restaurants over the next
seven years in the Chicagoland area,” LeVecke said. “That means we are
bringing jobs as well as our famous premium menu to this market. Our
successful August opening in Bolingbrook proved that Chicago-area
residents are hungry for Hardee’s premium 100 percent Black Angus
Thickburgers, Made from Scratch Biscuits and other one-of-a-kind
selections you can only get at Hardee’s.”

Each new Hardee’s will employ approximately 40 people with positions
ranging from full-time management opportunities to part-time crew
members.

About Hardee’s

Celebrating more than 50 years in the quick-service industry, Hardee’s®
Food Systems is a wholly owned subsidiary of CKE Restaurants Holdings,
Inc. of Carpinteria, Calif. As of the end of the second quarter of
fiscal 2014, the Company, through its subsidiaries, had a total of 3,373
franchised or company-operated restaurants in 42 states and 28 foreign
countries and U.S. territories worldwide, including 1,403 Carl’s Jr.®
restaurants and 1,965 Hardee’s restaurants. For more information, or to
find a Hardee’s near you, go to www.hardees.com.
Hardee’s social media sites include www.facebook.com/hardees,
www.twitter.com/hardees
and www.youtube.com/hardees.